First day of summer, it really feels like summer . . . and the Cape League had its first off day of the season. Oh, well. Can’t win ’em all.
When people are still hitting over .500, you know it’s too early to really draw conclusions about the leaderboard — these are hot streaks that happen to coincide with the start of the season. That said, there are plenty of standouts so far. Harwich’s Phil Ervin (Samford) leads the league in both home runs (3) and RBI (9). He’s also hitting .381 and five of his eight hits have gone for extra bases. Tyler Sciacca (Villanova) is your leading hitter at .563. He hit .359 this spring.
On the pitching side, Y-D’s Brian Gilbert (Seton Hall) leads in strikeouts with 14. Fourteen pitchers have 0.00 ERAs. Orleans’ Chase Johnson (Cal Poly) leads with two wins. Trevor Gott (Kentucky) has three saves and hasn’t allowed a hit. I’d say Gott is well on his way to a second consecutive Reliever of the Year award.
A couple of guys who have been invited to Team USA are currently on the Cape. Trevor Williams (Arizona State) is scheduled to make one more start for Orleans. D.J. Peterson (New Mexico) is playing for Hyannis and Jordan Hankins (Austin Peay) is in Bourne. Not sure what their plans are.
A couple of temporary players have already been signed to full contracts, most notably Bourne’s Mike Ahmed (Holy Cross). Considering the way he started the season, it was no surprise that the Braves locked him up. Ahmed, the brother of former Brave Nick Ahmed, went 6-for-9 in his first two games. Here’s a story from Wicked Local about Ahmed.
Youngstown State sophomore Drew Dosch, a late addition to the Falmouth roster, is off to a scorching start. He’s hitting .429 with four multi-hit games. Dosch is coming off a big sophomore season in which he hit .353 with eight home runs.
Wareham has the most hits in the league and has scored the most runs. On the flip side, Wareham’s team ERA is the worst in the league. That gap isn’t surprising when you look at the roster. The Gatemen have a veteran lineup but only five of the pitchers on their initial roster are currently with the team. That’s a lot of holes to fill.
Harwich is off to a good start and should get an added boost this week with the addition of Stanford stars Austin Wilson and Brian Ragira and LSU standout JaCoby Jones.
Orleans is off to a 5-1 start, same as the great start Hyannis got off to last year.
Look for the first Weekly Watch in the next couple days, along with the first-ever Right Field Fog Power Rankings.
